Good afternoon. This is your midday market update from City AM.
By the time the pandemic entered its second year, many began to wonder what the future of human interaction would be. Would meeting online become the new normal? Were in-person meetings, conferences, events, festivals becoming a thing of the past?
That was the view of crypto billionaire Mike Saylor, the boss of business intelligence firm Strategy, when I spoke to him in early 2021. The business spent a huge amount of its marketing budget on in-person roadshows, stands at conferences and in-person pitches to would-be customers.
The pandemic had made all of that work redundant, Saylor told me, and it wouldn’t be coming back. He axed hundreds of marketing staff and put all the cash saved into bitcoin.
Five years on, those predictions have been proved wrong. The corporate events industry has roared back into life since Covid, and many businesses are spending more than ever.
Proof of the level of confidence in this rebound today came with the multi-billion acquisition of Clarion by events business Informa, marking one of the biggest takeover deals by a FTSE 100 firm this year.
The £2.3bn deal will see the addition of over 100 business-to-business live event brands under the Informa umbrella, including the world’s largest consumer electronics and home appliances trade show, IFA Berlin, the International Casino Exhibition and the Defence & Security Equipment International that is held biennially at London’s ExCel.
Informa has reason to seize on the trend. The UK’s events sector generated an estimated £22.5bn for the national economy in 2025, a major jump from the £19.3bn in 2024, according to the UK Conference and Meeting Survey 2026.
Indeed, more events are being held in the UK now than they were before the pandemic. A total of 1.2 conferences and meetings were held in 2025, the survey found, up 8 per cent on 2024 and the highest number since 2019. The corporate sector accounted for over half of all events, taking an even bigger share compared to previous years.
Doubling down
And Informa appears to be doubling down on events. The company also announced plans to separate its academic business, Taylor & Francis, to focus the group on its core B2B events business.
The early shareholder impression of the deal was warm. The stock was up by more than four per cent by mid-morning trading in London.
“This is an extremely front-footed move; Informa is firmly pushing forwards with this significant reshaping of the portfolio,” analysts at Panmure Liberum said.
“We do think the price is higher than comfortable on first glance, with the post-synergy valuation being roughly equal to Informa's current trading valuation, but the industrial logic is very strong.”
But AJ Bell added a note of caution: “Although Covid felt like a once in a generation episode, it had a massive impact on the events world. Some investors may be nervous about Informa being exposed to the risk of in-person gatherings being disrupted in the future.
“While potentially less profitable and exciting, the publishing side is arguably more defensive and less exposed to fluctuations in the economy. In the future, that could mean Informa is more of a rollercoaster ride for shareholders.”
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